Access devices commonly referred to as trocars are inserted into the body by the surgeon or medical staff at the beginning of a procedure to maintain an open channel into a body cavity for the easy introduction of endoscopic cameras or other minimally invasive surgical instruments. The videoscopic procedures that use trocar access devices include laparoscopies, arthroscopies, thracoscopies, pelviscopies, and cystoscopies.
During minimally invasive surgical procedures, the endoscopic camera and all instruments must be passed through channels maintained open by access devices commonly called trocars. Because instruments are repeatedly inserted in and pulled out of these trocars over the course of a procedure, the internal cannula or walls of the trocar can accumulate blood, tissue and other bodily fluids that instruments have come into contact with inside the body cavity. This is particularly the case when specimens of tissue are intentionally removed from the body through these trocars for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes.
Surgeons currently have no devices or methods for effectively cleaning the internal walls of trocar access devices. Because cameras are passed into body cavities through these channels, surgeons and medical staff often find that their endoscopic image is blurred or blocked when the lens picks up the blood, tissue, or other debris along the trocar's wall as it is passed into the body through these channels. Once the camera is inside the body and the problem is identified, the endoscope must be removed again and cleaned. This is still no guarantee that the vision will be clear upon reinsertion, as the fluids that were coating the internal walls of the trocar may still remain.
If the surgeon believes that he or she can no longer proceed because the camera can not be inserted through the trocar without collecting an unacceptable amount of debris on the lens, the surgeon may roll up a piece of gauze or other towel and attempt to introduce it into the trocar either manually or with the aid of a grasping instrument. While this may clean the proximal end of the trocar's internal cannula, it typically fails to reach the distal end and is certainly not capable of thoroughly scrubbing the internal walls of the trocar.
It is therefore a general object of the present invention to provide a device and method of overcoming the above-mentioned drawbacks in cleaning the internal cannula or wall of trocars or similar laproscopic and endoscopic surgical access devices.